Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)

Fáiltím roimh an díospóireacht faoi chúrsaí ealaíne. Tá sé iontach tábhachtach. Is breá an rud go bhfuil an t-Aire anseo inár measc arís. Tugann Sinn Féin tacaíocht iomlán don rún atá á chur ar aghaidh ag na Seanadóirí neamhspleácha agus fáiltím roimhe. Tá súil agam go mbeidh sé in acmhainn ag an Rialtas tacú leis an rún go hiomlán mar atá sé, mar sílim gur cuireadh ar aghaidh é le dea-mhéin agus ar mhaithe leis an rud ceart a dhéanamh.

Many years ago Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as a man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. I am sure the Minister is surrounded by cynics, although I do not contend he is one, rather he is the opposite. However, they are plentiful. If Oscar Wilde was alive today, he would probably describe Chancellor Angela Merkel as a cynic. I am sure there are many others throughout Europe who do not realise the value of the arts and culture, particularly in the Irish context. I imagine Ireland has more artists per capita than any other country because we cover so many disciplines, from literature to dance, theatre, music and so on. That is probably true and we will contend it is until someone tells us the opposite.

The debate has gone in the wrong direction. The Minister has said his starting principle is to examine organisations, especially those receiving money from the taxpayer, and that this is a healthy and necessary exercise. That is the wrong place to start. Earlier we had a debate on our natural resources, including oil and gas. We should turn this debate into one on our natural resources. The arts are probably one of our best natural resources. The debate about funding would then centre on how to support that resource. How do we support artists and the people with the creativity, genius and ingenuity to create art that is different from anything else in the world? How does this enhance us as a community, a people and a state? What are the benefits and dividends that ensue from it?

I have a bugbear about the way the arts are measured. People in the arts community have always felt a need to justify ourselves to those with a bums-on-seats mentality because that is what the Civil Service has asked us to do. It is what the funders, the cynics, have asked us to do. We have to justify everything in those terms. We need to stand up and say the arts deserve to be funded. Arts activity is worthy of being funded in its own right. Conditionality should not be imposed on someone funded as an artist in residence, for example. An artist in residence should not be obliged to do workshops in schools. An artist in residence should receive stand-alone funding. However, I accept that we must have some measurement in order to stave off all the cynics around us.

How do we best enhance the arts and how do we use them? They can be a catalyst in bringing us out of an economic downturn. Very little capital investment is needed for an arts project. The Galway Arts Festival, the film industry and other arts projects have shown that the multiplier effect of investment in the arts is massive. The comeback from arts activities, in direct taxation and the spend in the local community, is massive. We need to make that argument. To use football parlance, the Minister has gone in with the hard shoulder on a number of occasions to defend the arts, but in a football match of 70 minutes a player has to keep on doing this. The Minister is going to have to keep doing it to defend the arts. We need him to go in with the hard shoulder and tell the cynics to back off the arts. He would have our full support in doing so. He would also receive cross-party support.

To keep the cynics happy, one must recognise that expenditure in the arts sector alone amounts to €1.8 billion and that 26,590 people are employed in the arts, all of whom are paying tax as employees. This is of huge importance. Moreover, the creative industries themselves are worth €5.4 billion to the country and employ almost 100,000 people. That is neither a small nor an insignificant number of people. As Senator Norris noted earlier, 57% of adults or almost 2 million people are arts attenders and 1.2 million people engage in artistic or creative activities. Consequently, we certainly have the requisite number of bums on seats for the size of our nation but my point is this should not be the only measure.

The Minister and I both attended a recent event organised by him in which he toured the country to talk to people involved in the arts. It was very good and there was a fantastic engagement in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway. One suggestion made at that meeting was the Government should consider having an artist appointed to each State body. That is a really good and clever suggestion. First, for an artist who is fairly hard up, there would be a stipend that certainly would add to his or her income. However, it would be crucial to bring such creativity into the decision making of the State and this should be done at all levels. Artists tend to think differently and creatively and to look at other ways of doing things and I believe people have become highly blinkered in their thinking. One must recognise the work of the artist as being important in its own right.

Tá súil agam go mbeidh an tAire ábalta labhairt faoi Ealaín na Gaeltachta and I hope the funding available for that body can be continued, as it is very important for Irish language arts. Moreover, the inclusion issues of geography, social inclusion and access to the arts for people from all spectrums of society are very important. Sinn Féin supports the four main thrusts outlined by Senator Zappone and the wishes of the independent artists are pragmatic and clear. I will conclude by quoting Oscar Wilde, who wrote "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars". I believe the Minister and Members are looking at the stars but they must convince a great many more people to do so.